Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   10/07/2014

                           Ebola—the reality and fantasy

Would you like to hear, and ask questions, about the state of our Tehama County government? Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Steve Chamblin will appear as the guest of the Tea Party Patriots at about 6:30 at the Westside Grange on Walnut St, west of Baker. The regular meeting starts at 6 PM.

Do you find the events surrounding the Ebola outbreak in Africa, as well as the arrival and appearance of infected people hear in America, to be disconcerting, even terrifying? Perhaps not so much on foreign soil as footage of such maladies in impoverished, backward nations has over time almost numbed us to their human condition. However, it pains any sentient soul to grasp that thousands have died, that many more thousands have been and remain infected and likely to die, and that the toll could reach into the millions before it winds down as all mass infections eventually do.

Moreover, our government and private charities reaching out with advanced medical aid aside, the federal government’s default role is to protect American citizens residing within our borders from such foreign, viral threats. State governors, leaders and agencies certainly swing into action but our national government has responsibility for Customs and Border Enforcement and sole discretion over the decisions to restrict travel in the face of an international emergency and epidemic.

The competence and professional expertise of federal and state medical authorities should inspire calm and a sense that the relatively isolated cases are being handled so as to erect virtual firewalls between infected people and the general public. Ebola is a scary, but hard to contract, disease and I find it unseemly to engage in nearly hysterical speculation over worst-case scenarios that, in the past, have usually failed to materialize. A relatively small number of people are going to contact the bodily fluids—sweat, vaporized expectorant from coughing, etc.—of any infectious individual.

Sure, Ebola could evolve into an airborne virus spread by unsuspecting but infected people far and wide; however, that unlikely development has to be dismissed unless it actually transpires. Our federal agencies and their spokespersons, like Dr. Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control, have insisted against all logic that banning entry into America by foreigners from Ebola-ridden Central African nations would be counterproductive.

It’s possible their decisions won’t result in more infections and deaths on our soil but what if they’re wrong? Will Frieden and Obama own up to responsibility for deaths of Americans that would not have occurred if such foreign travelers were refused entry.

“U.S. not considering a travel ban amid Ebola outbreak,” the White House said on Monday (Reuters). Illustrating how far and deep into politically correct, multi-cultural non-logic they have gone, Frieden actually invoked the role of slavery in the founding of Liberia as a paramount reason against a travel ban. How, exactly, does that relate to other countries like Sierra Leone? Hmmm.

We’ve already seen that, in the case of Liberian national (they sure delayed telling us that fact) Mr. Duncan, his entry into America was effected by his lying to Liberian airport screeners, which was motivated by his understandable determination to get into America for access to American medical treatment. We surely don’t have the resources for all infected Africans to come here. We surely can’t fly medical resources to every underdeveloped city and country where lightly screened African citizens land and proceed to contact and infect others. That’s not a speculative scenario, just facts. Media talkers hesitate to state the obvious: this is a test of President Obama’s leadership.

When it comes to highly informed, but realistic, speculative fantasy, no one does it better than author Tom Clancy: Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of all Fears, among others. This summer, I found a hardcover, 900-page book by Clancy, Executive Orders (1996), and had the time to read it all. In short, the CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, becomes an unlikely President Ryan after a terrorist attack on Congress during a joint session address by the prior President. He has numerous plots against America land on his plate at once—all at the behest of Iran’s jihadist, Muslim mullah.

One of those plots involved turning the Ebola virus into a biological weapon of mass destruction by cultivating an infectious stew that became dispersible as an aerosol from pressurized cans. Iranian agents simply placed those cans in convention centers holding events—sales, recreation, etc.—in 8 to 10 American cities, with timers set to release the Ebola at a point of maximum attendance. With attendees and vendors from far and wide, they simply waited, secure in the knowledge that their efforts were untraceable back to Iran.

As first hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Americans reported to hospital emergency rooms with symptoms, most of whom would die, and all of whom had the biological capacity to spread the disease through the air, President Ryan had to make some tough decisions. Using emergency powers, he ordered all interstate travel prohibited: automobiles, planes, buses and trains, with National Guard troops enforcing the ban at all highway state borders.

Sorry to tease you but I’ll finish the plots, one involving the Secret Service, next week.